Dean Saunders believes Kevin Doyle may have lost his ‘eye of the tiger’.

The Irish striker has gone 12 games without a goal and scored five all season.

“It used to affect me if I didn’t score for four or five games,” said the boss.

“My game revolved around scoring goals – unfortunately you can’t teach people the instinct of being in the right place.

“You can show them where to run and you can practice your finishing and your technique.

“John Toshack said to me once: ‘You can be the best coach and motivator in the world and the best organiser but you’ve got to buy a goal. You have to pay for strikers – you have to go and buy the ones who’ve got the knack’.

“We’ve got players here with the knack. You always have an eye for a goal but you can lose your eye of the tiger.

‘‘I’ve still got my eye for goal now but if you lose your eye of the tiger you are not actually moving to where the ball is going.

‘‘It is belief and confidence.

‘‘When you are scoring you have got the eye of the tiger – everywhere you run the ball bounces in front of you.

“You see a cross come in and you are perfect, exactly where you’ve timed your run and every time you follow up the goalkeeper spills it. You connect with volleys and difficult half-volleys.

‘‘It is belief. When you are scoring you expect the ball to come to you. And when you aren’t you hope. That’s the yard of difference – ‘if only I’d set off earlier’.

“But Kevin is an experienced player. He knows you have patches. It’s not just Kevin – Bjorn Sigurdarson and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake have had a go.